I made a mistake with my furniture business (actually, I made lots of mistakes) by not having an exit plan. That doesn’t mean adhering to safety regulations and assigning exit designations in case of an emergency (I don’t think we measured up). I mean, what is the plan for exiting (selling) the business to get the best profit. There was a time when it would have been great to sell the business. The economy was doing well. The business was […]

I used to work as a Postie (Postman) and had to get up pretty early. It only took me around 5 mins to get there from where I lived, as there was no traffic that time of the morning. You would go in pick up your mail, sort it and bundle it up, ready for delivery. Then you would head outside on the bike to deliver the mail, getting paid to do exercise. If you finished early (which I almost […]

When we were in Brisbane last year I bought a vehicle for the family. It was nothing flash, just something to get us around. I didn’t really make sure that it was all running smooth. I was not sure how long we were going to be in Brisbane and I wanted to get something quickly. When driving it I noticed that it idled rough when in drive and stationary, it shook big time. I hoped it wasn’t something major and […]

It has been ages since I last wrote a blog post. We left Brisbane in December and it is now nearly June. I had thought that I would be in holiday mode for just a few weeks, but I have overextended my laziness. It is true that when you are retired you can do whatever you want, but who really wants to sit around and do nothing all the time. I want to be able to make some sort of […]

We had been invited to lunch. This was a normal experience for us to be invited out for lunch in China. It was a really nice restaurant and the dishes were good without being memorable. Then a dish came out with some mystery looking meat and there were bits covering parts of it. As it got closer I could see that those bits were scorpions. There must have been like 20 or so scorpions on that dish. I had never […]

A lot of people would call us frugal. That would be true. Sometimes it was embarrassingly true. I won’t go into all the details here. Suffice to say that we try to save money wherever we can. That sometimes might make people feel a bit uncomfortable (I can’t think of any specific examples). We don’t follow the norm when it comes to spending at all. That does not mean we are cheap. We go out of our way to save […]

It’s coming up to that time of the year again. The silly season or the time when you can’t find a carpark at the mall. The shops all have their decorations up, the Christmas music is playing (please no more Snoopy’s Christmas) and the sales discounts are pathetic. It’s that time when people spend way too much money and live the rest of the year paying for it. How can you survive the Christmas season without blowing your budget or […]

I was in New Zealand a week or so ago sorting out the electrical wiring issue at our rental place. I saw these beautiful doors that I had installed (ahem, yes that was me. Picture above) and it reminded me why I like doors, especially big ones. That sounds strange. Let me explain. In our second house, we had a large lounge and bedroom on the lower level that was accessed by a really strange u-turn hallway through a concrete […]

I just got back from New Zealand on Friday night. Our rental property had to be rewired as some lights and power points had stopped working. The electrician said that the wires were dangerous and could cause a fire. The wires were encased in rubber and over the years had become brittle and failed. We got two quotes which both said that it could take 10 days+ and cost 15K+ to rewire (not including the purchase of any new light fittings, which […]

When we were planning to convert our house into two units we had to leave access to the wiring and plumbing under the house. The existing access was through “the little red door” which led to a great workshop (man space). Most of the space was going to be transformed into a bathroom for the downstairs unit, but we were able to leave a shelved corridor with access to the rest of the under house. It was a shame to […]